A Reel Life film section

Issue: Summer, 2002

Pygmalion movie review

A young street vendor, Eliza Doolittle, offers to pay a vocal expert, Professor Henry Higgins, to teach her to speak well enough for her to get a job in a shop. The expert and a friend make a bet, can he teach her so well that she can pass for an upper-class lady?

Inspired by the classic story of Pygmalion by Ovid in which a sculptor who had no time for real women, fell in love with one of his own statues, a statue that Venus then brought to life for him.

In this version, the clay to be molded is a young girl (Wendy Hiller) and the modeller is a professor (Leslie Howard) and his friend Colonel George Pickering (Scott Sunderland).

Movie poster, Pygmalion

Based on the George Bernard Shaw play, Pygmalion is a clever and well-performed story of a mentor who fails to respect his pupil, and a love that seems impossible. This is the original of the well-known musical My Fair Lady, and inspiredShe's All That
.

An enjoyable film, and a wonderful chance to see people such as the great Wendy Hiller in their youth.
Available on DVD.

by Ali Kayn
Australian release 1938
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